


Of All of the Faces (You Were the One Next to Me)

by TheExplodingPen



Series: what's mine is yours to make your own [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Past Torture, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 04:44:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4166349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheExplodingPen/pseuds/TheExplodingPen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>It's nearly an hour later when Clint stands and stretches, and Pietro figures that this is it, that it has to be, because it's the only time Clint has let go of his hand, so he closes his eyes and tries to brace himself for the first blow, the first muttered, harsh epithet, but it doesn't come. He's lying there with his eyes closed, and every muscle in his body is tense, even though doing that hurts so fucking much, because he knows that taking a strike with tense muscles is better than taking it with relaxed ones.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>Pietro wakes up, and comes to the wrong conclusions about why Clint is in his hospital room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All of the Faces (You Were the One Next to Me)

Pietro awakes to his sister pushing at all of his mental barriers, her panic seeping through their connection enough to make him let her through without any resistance. Nothing hurts, physically, at least, and that is the first thing she takes stock of, her relief almost overriding his own when she realizes that he's all right. 

He hears a quick exhale of breath, and then feels Wanda's shaky hands grab one of his own. That doesn't make sense, because he's already aware of someone else holding his other hand, but he tries not to think too hard about it and just focuses on the fact that he's alive. He shouldn't be alive. He remembers feeling each and every bullet enter him, and he knows that taking that many should have killed him.

He makes himself open his eyes, his gaze automatically falling to his own body. It's covered in a hospital gown, but there aren't any bandages that he can see and, perhaps more disturbingly, nothing hurts. Nothing, except his two hands where two people are squeezing just a little too hard.

When he glances to his right, he sees Clint sitting next to his bed, holding his hand tight between his own. “Can't say I saw this coming,” he says, before he can think better of it, and Wanda hits him and then hugs him, and Clint laughs.

Pietro wonders why the archer is still there, an hour later, but doesn't ask. He's fairly certain he knows the answer, after all. He's one of the newest members of the team, and as such, one of the least valuable. His actions caused the team to waste resources on him, and because of that, the balances need to be set straight again. All in all, he's almost glad that Clint is going to be the one administering his punishment. He doubts the man is going to get any sort of sadistic pleasure out of hurting him, like the HYDRA agents did, and he believes that Clint is a fair man. That assessment only goes up when he realizes that Clint is waiting for Wanda to leave to begin whatever process he's going to do.

Wanda senses a little bit of his apprehension, but she doesn't press, as per his normal requests. He doesn't want her to know, anyway. He can already see that she likes being with the other Avengers, and he doesn't want to give her a reason to even consider leaving. She needs this. And he deserves a punishment.

Still, that doesn't make the apprehension go away when Wanda leaves. Clint doesn't do anything, immediately, and after another half-hour of casual chatting, he still hasn't moved from his place next to Pietro's bed and hasn't done anything more aggressive than straighten Pietro's hair. It's unnerving, really, and while it's not a tactic that Pietro's unfamiliar with, it's not one he expected Clint to use. There's no point in lulling him into a false sense of security. He's literally too weak to run away, or move at all. 

It's nearly an hour later when Clint stands and stretches, and Pietro figures that this is it, that it has to be, because it's the only time Clint has let go of his hand, so he closes his eyes and tries to brace himself for the first blow, the first muttered, harsh epithet, but it doesn't come. He's lying there with his eyes closed, and every muscle in his body is tense, even though doing that hurts so fucking much, because he knows that taking a strike with tense muscles is better than taking it with relaxed ones. But the strike still don't come, and after another moment, he feels Clint's hand on his arm, gentle and cautious.

“Hey, kid? Everything okay? If it hurts too much, we can get them to turn up the morphine a little.”

Pietro has to make an amused, almost derisive sound. “You have not done anything yet,” he says, and immediately regrets it, because antagonizing the other man is probably not the best way to ensure that he gets out of this hospital bed anytime soon. But Clint doesn't look upset, or angered, just... confused, which in turn, confuses Pietro.

“What do you mean, I haven't done anything?”

And... oh. Pietro's misjudged Clint, misjudged him terribly, because he apparently is the type to take a sort of sadistic pleasure out this, like Strucker, like...

_It's cold, and Pietro's naked and wet, and it's so, so cold. He's tried to stop his teeth from chattering, but it's useless, and he knows that's the point, to make him feel helpless and powerless, and it's working._

_His lips are numb by the time the guard returns and his trembling is uncontrollable, full-body shivers that make him jerk around on the cold concrete floor. The rough surface is abrasive against his bare skin, making marks he knows will sting later, when he warms up, but at the moment, he's just a little past too numb to care or feel the cuts properly._

_Hypothermia, he thinks. That's what's setting in, making his eyes droop and lethargy take over his body. He should be more worried, but he knows they won't let him die. He is the physical manifestation of HYDRA's tenuous hold on his sister, and they know that if he dies, they won't be able to contain her. If the threat of Pietro's continued pain doesn't hang over her head like a widow's veil, well, there just won't be anything to hold her back._

_The guard sneers something at him in Sokovian, and Pietro blinks trying to understand the order, but before his sluggish synapses can process it, there's a sharp pain to his ribs and the wind is knocked out of him. He comes to the realization, a little slowly, that he's been kicked in the side, and then the world starts to black out around the edges, around the guard's face, and he's still yelling at him, still demanding something, and he doesn't understand, he can't understand, he's passing out and he's going to die and Wanda is going to get hurt and..._

“Pietro, hey, hey, Jesus kid, take a deep breath. It's okay, you're safe. Deep breath, there we go, that's it.”

Pietro sucks in a breath that burns all the way down his throat and into his lungs, his eyes flying open and his body bowing up off the mattress. Clint moves the next instant, and distantly, Pietro might be a little impressed at his speed, because one moment the man is standing over his bed, looking worried, and the next, he's got Pietro's wrists in one hand above his head and a leg thrown over his hip, keeping him pressed down against the mattress. 

“Easy, there. It's okay. It's just me, kid, you're safe, okay? You're safe. Just keep taking those deep breaths for me, you're doing fine. In and out, there we go.”

Clint still looks worried, and Pietro realizes that he's shaking, trembling from where Clint's holding down his hands all the way down to his ankles, and he can't stop it. It's almost reminiscent of the hypothermia-induced shaking he remembers experiencing under Strucker's orders, and he's halfway to drifting back into that memory when Clint shakes him a little. 

“Hey, stay with me, kid. Eyes up here, yeah?”

Pietro obeys, because it's almost an order, and when he gets like this, orders are about all he can process. He nods and looks up, meeting the hard blue eyes above him, and they're so different from Strucker's, so different from the myriad of scientists' that had experimented on him that he doesn't flash back. He stays, and after a long moment, he all but goes limp under the weight of Clint's body, a pained almost-whine leaving his lips. 

Clint releases his wrists tentatively, and frowns a little when Pietro doesn't move them, but he doesn't comment, just carefully slides the rest of his body off the younger man. Pietro's still panting a little chest heaving, but that calms almost instantly when Clint lays a hand on his chest and murmurs, “Easy. Slow breaths for me, okay? You're doing great, Pietro. I know this is tough. Just bear with me, all right?”

Pietro still doesn't understand, because Clint shouldn't be comforting him like this. After all, a panic attack isn't exactly a huge medical concern, and most definitely not life threatening, but the man is acting like it's something to be avoided. None of Strucker's men had ever cared about sending him spiraling into a panic attack, so he's... confused.

But his breaths slow down, and slowly, he sees Clint relax, muscle by muscle. He still hasn't moved his hands from above his head, where Clint pinned them, because he hasn't been given permission to and he doesn't want to anger the other man. Clint doesn't look angry, though, just relieved, and that's damn confusing as well.

“Flashback to Sokovia?” Clint asks, after a moment, and Pietro just nods. There's nothing to say, really. He has a strong memory, though he wishes he didn't. He'd ask Wanda to erase some of them if it didn't mean that she'd have to see every single, painful one. “I'm sorry,” Clint continues. “Not sure what it was about what I said, but I'll see if I can avoid doing it again, okay? If you know what it was, you can tell me, but no rush. Just take your time.”

Pietro knows he's staring, mouth agape, but he can't help it. Clint is rubbing at his arm gently, almost comfortingly, and this goes beyond trying to instill a false sense of security. This is... Pietro's not sure what it is, and he's definitely sure he doesn't like it. He doesn't know how to deal, or what to expect. Clint must notice his confusion, or something, because he's frowning again, reaching down to take Pietro's hand.

“Everything okay? You worried about something, or you still just recuperating?”

Opening and closing his mouth a few times, Pietro looks up at Clint. “When... when is it going to start?”

If anything, Clint's frown deepens. “When's what going to start?”

Pietro's very nearly triggered again, the briefest memory of one of the medical officers making him beg to be flogged and beaten surfacing just briefly, but he pushes it down, because Clint asked him a question, and he needs to answer. “My punishment,” he says, and his voice sounds raw, quiet.

He closes his eyes and tenses, but a blow still doesn't come. Instead, there's a whispered, “Oh, _fuck_ , kid,” and Clint's hand squeezes his own, and suddenly, he's being sat up and wrapped up in a strong pair of arms. His face ends up pressed against Clint's neck, mouth hot against his pulse, and it takes him a moment to realize that he's shaking again, with tears, this time.

Clint isn't pushing him away, though, or laughing. He's just holding him, rocking him gently, the fingers of one hand carding lightly through his hair while his other arm stays wrapped firmly around Pietro. It's... comforting, and it shouldn't be, because Pietro's still mostly sure that those hands are going to leave bruises on him later, but Clint feels safe, and Pietro can't help but melt a little bit into the embrace. And Clint just pulls him in that much closer and lets him cry.

Pietro cries for a while.

It's quiet, unlike anything else he does, because crying is an indicator of weakness and showing weakness in the labs was akin to dropping raw meat in a shark tank. So he cries quietly, with his fingers curled in Clint's shirt like he wants to push him away and pull him closer at the same time. He's not sure what he wants, and he's not sure what Clint is going to give him, because the man is being so damn unpredictable.

Eventually, his crying tapers off, and he's left sniffling into the crook of Clint's neck, eyes shut and mouth open. The other man doesn't pull away, though, just turns his head until Pietro feels soft pressure against his hair. Clint's voice, when he speaks, is soft, and Pietro has to focus in order to hear every word.

“Pietro, no one is going to punish you.” Clint almost spits the word, like it's dirty, like it doesn't happen as often as Pietro knows it does. “You're not... we're not HYDRA. We don't want to hurt you. We're not _going_ to hurt you, okay? No one. Not your sister, either, in case you're worried. You two are safe now.” His fingernails scratch lightly at Pietro's scalp, and it's a nice feeling, so completely opposite to what he'd been expecting those hands to do. “And all of that aside, anyway, you haven't done anything wrong.”

“I used resources,” Pietro says immediately, even though his reply is muffled by Clint's neck. He doesn't try to move his head, though, just shifts it a little until it's resting on Clint's shoulder, and Clint doesn't move his hand from his hair. “Important resources. Like this bed space, and fluids, and blood. You gave me so much blood. I got hurt in the field, and you wasted all of that on me.”

“Wasted?” Clint repeats, and he sounds incredulous. “No, kid. That wasn't a waste. You were dying. We did what we had to do to save you. That required a bit of blood, but nothing that can't be replaced. The point is, you're part of this team now, and your team took care of you. You're not going to be punished for that.”

Clint's actually being honest, Pietro's pretty sure. He sounds like he means what he says. But that's... too good to be true, really, even if Clint is holding him and stroking his hair and telling him that it's going to be all right, because it can't be. He fucked up, got hurt, and they had to use their time and money to fix him.

“I do not...” he begins, but trails off, because while he doesn't understand, he also doesn't want to make Clint explain it. Clint's already being too nice to him as it is. He can't ask for more. 

Clint, however, apparently doesn't see it that way. When he sighs, he doesn't sound frustrated or upset, just... sad, almost. “If Nat got hurt, or Steve, or Tony or me or Banner or any of us, we'd do everything we could to get them back in shape, right? And that applies to you now, too. And your sister, and Vision. You're all part of this family, okay? That means that we're going to take care of you, no matter what. And that means that you don't need to worry about the resources we use or anything like that.” For a moment, Clint's arms tighten around him, and Pietro lets out a pathetic sound, burying his face deeper in the man's neck, because he hasn't been held like this in as long as he can remember and it feels _good_. And Clint doesn't let him go, just pulls him in that much closer and murmurs, “We've got you. I've got you. No one here is going to hurt you like that, kid. I promise.”

Pietro lets Clint's warm words settle him, allows himself to melt a little farther into the arms holding him, because they feel safe. The reassurance that Clint is offering is exactly what he needs, apparently, so he welcomes it, letting his breaths even out and the last few tears fall from his eyes. He feels wrecked, and exhausted, and at the same time he never wants to leave this embrace because Clint makes him feel safe and he hasn't felt that since... since ever.

He shudders out a breath, and Clint's fingers tighten for a moment in his hair. It's a good pressure, not painful, and he makes a soft noise against the older man's neck, curling into him a little more even though moving _hurts_ and he has to grit his teeth against the pain. Clint notices, because of course he does, and shifts forward, laying Pietro back down on the bed despite the noise of protest the younger man makes.

“Hey, don't worry.” Clint reaches for his hand and squeezes it, giving him a soft smile. “I'm not going anywhere. You just need to heal up a little, okay?” With his other hand, he reaches out and brushes Pietro's bangs away from his face, and then leans down to press his lips to his forehead. Pietro closes his eyes and doesn't reach up to pull Clint down on top of him, because he knows that would hurt, and Clint said that he needed to heal up.

He opens his mouth to reply, but before he can, there is a knock on the door and the captain steps in, still dressed in full regalia, and nods at Clint. “Barton, can I talk to you?”

Clint squeezes his hand, and Pietro doesn't want him to leave, doesn't want to be alone, but Clint brushes his fingers through his hair one more time and leans down and murmurs, “It's okay. I'll be right back, all right? Just close your eyes and get some rest.”

So Pietro does, and when he opens them again, Clint is sitting in his chair, phone in one hand, Pietro's hand in the other.

**Author's Note:**

> The rest of the fics in the series will show the progression of Clint and Pietro's relationship from this moment to the washing machine scene at the end of the first one. If you have any suggestions for kinks or scenarios you want to see, let me know!


End file.
